When Elvis Went to Vegas

Ellen Willis’s piece, from 1969, on the singer’s return to the concert stage after almost a decade. View in browser | Update your preferences Musical Events Viva Las Vegas: Elvis Returns to the Stage The King’s first concert at the International Hotel. By Ellen Willis When Austin Butler won the Golden Globe, earlier this month, for playing the title role in “Elvis,” viewers of his acceptance speech noticed a suspicious new accent. As he thanked Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt, Butler, a native of Southern California, seemed to speak with a Southern drawl, breathy and deep. Perhaps the actor can’t help embodying Elvis Presley’s spirit, even offscreen. In 1969, the real Elvis also worried about playing Elvis. Having given up on movie stardom—a dream that Butler has now seemingly achieved—the singer returned to the concert stage after almost a decade without touring, no longer a raunchy young rocker but a grown man with combed-down hair. Following his televised ’68 Comeback Special, featuring that famous black jumpsuit, Presley began a series of performances in Las Vegas, at the new and spangling International Hotel. To Ellen Willis, The New Yorker’s first pop-music critic, the setting seemed weird and intriguing—rock and roll for the overwhelmingly white and middle-aged. At the first show, “sublimely irrelevant” Greek statues and expensive French food competed for attention, but it was Elvis’s identity crisis that compelled her. The performer, now a veteran at age thirty-three, was “at once old money and young money, sellout and folk hero. How would he play it?” On the chintzy night-club stage, the King proved his enduring love for rhythm and blues. (“We knew it all the time, Elvis,” Willis reassures him.) Later, in the casino, she spies his money-drunk manager, Colonel Tom Parker, dropping five hundred dollars at roulette. Much like a slot machine, the Butler-led new bio-pic is a whirling carnival of myth and hype. No wonder it became a hit—and, as of Tuesday, a nominee for eight Oscars, including a Best Actor nod for its lead. Las Vegas, Willis observes, has always been “more like Hollywood than Hollywood.” Read the story Also from the Archive The Current Cinema How “Elvis” Plays the King From 2022: Baz Luhrmann’s film, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, shows a revolutionary musician being absorbed into the mainstream, but does it critique that process or continue it? By Anthony Lane Rock, Etc. Janis Joplin’s Electric Energy From 1969: Two bands, two concerts. By Ellen Willis More from The New Yorker Books What’s the Matter with Men? They’re floundering at school and in the workplace. Some conservatives blame a crisis of masculinity, but the problems—and their solutions—are far more complex. By Idrees Kahloon The Front Row The 2023 Oscar Nominations, and What Should Have Made the List These selections highlight the gap between what’s on the Academy’s radar and what’s going on in the world of movies at large. By Richard Brody Today’s newsletter was written by Emily Marion Clancy. Thanks for Reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up for The Daily. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from the products and services that are purchased through links in our newsletters as part of our affiliate partnerships with retailers. Copyright © Condé Nast 2023. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.